FY 2018 Budget

The City Manager submitted his proposed budget for FY 2018 along with the ten year Capital Improvement Program to the City Council on Tuesday, February 21st. As usual, we are faced with challenges regarding the new pool at Chinquapin.

The money for the new pool is not part of the CIP. That is the bad news. However, it is part of a listing of capital projects in a supplemental CIP. That supplemental CIP has $15.35 million in it for the new pool for FY 2018. That is the amount needed from the City to go with the $4.5 million that they already approved and have in a reserve account for the project. To get the $15.35 million, we will need the City Council to decide to move it into the base CIP. This may require a tax increase due to the substantial funding now needed by the school system.

There are many questions yet to be answered regarding the proposed budget. The AAA Board of Directors will meet on Monday, February 27th at 6:30 pm at Chinquapin to discuss the budget and how we should react to it. If any non-Board members are interested, please join us for that meeting.

Let me close with a thank you to our membership. I’m sure that without all of your messages to Council and to the City Manager, we would not even be in the supplemental CIP. The school needs would have forced us out altogether if you had not intervened.

After we discuss the next steps to take, we will be back to the full membership.